Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand

by Gail Carson Levine

  Sara Quirtle sang, “You’re back. You’re back. Welcome back. I’m glad you’re back.” She pumped her legs extra hard.

  But Prilla couldn’t stay! Never Land needed her. Besides, she didn’t know how to stay.

  She jumped up. She did three midair handstands and another cartwheel. “I have to go. Farewell, Sara Quirtle.” She flew over the roof. When she was too small for Sara Quirtle to see, she turned.

  The swing was slowing. Sara Quirtle was no longer pumping, and her face was as slack as it had been when Prilla first saw it.

  Prilla’s glow flickered and almost went out. Oh, no! Sara Quirtle must be incomplete!

  Occasionally, a fairy arrives in Never Land incomplete, because a bit came off during the ocean journey to the island. The scout Russell, for example, who wished to be Mother Dove’s favorite, was incomplete. Mother Dove loved the in-completes as completely as she loved every other fairy. Still, incompleteness set one apart.

  Prilla had never heard of an incomplete Clumsy. She feared she might have Sara Quirtle’s missing part.

  She was correct. Sara Quirtle’s first laugh had been so explosive that a snippet of Sara Quirtle had lodged in Prilla and been absorbed. It was the Sara Quirtle in Prilla that gave Prilla her clapping talent and her talent for blinking over to the mainland.

  Prilla took two wing flaps back toward Sara Quirtle and stopped, Never Land tugging at her. She wanted to stay longer, but—

  The flood had risen. Feeling hopeless, Prilla blinked to a mainland schoolyard. “Clap to help Fairy Haven!”

  She saw a dot in the sky above her. Her wings quivered. A hawk?

  Wrong shape for a hawk. She squinted.

  The balloon carrier! There it was, and now she had a wish.

  As she flew upward, Prilla wondered if Mother Dove would disapprove of her using the wand since she wasn’t a quester.

  She drew closer and saw three fairies at the cord. Rani had wings again!

  Nobody was in the carrier. Prilla could wave the wand, and Mother Dove wouldn’t have to find out.

  The wand was smaller than Prilla expected—shiny and jaunty, its squiggle catching the afternoon sun. It would be easy to wave. Prilla picked it up without landing. The questers didn’t turn around.

  In a rush, she whispered, “Without taking anything away from me or my talent, make Sara Quirtle complete.” She waved the wand, then replaced it carefully.

  Completing someone was complicated. The wand had to think to obey. A wide-awake spark flared in its sleeping mind. It granted Prilla’s wish, then returned to deep slumber.

  Prilla flew with all her might to reach Ree and Rani and Tink and help them pull the carrier. As she drew close, she got her first clear view of Rani’s wings.

  If fish could fly they’d have wings like hers, webbed and covered with oily scales. Prilla was easy to please, but those wings were unsightly!

  Prilla grabbed the carrier cord and started pulling, too. “Hello!”

  They didn’t hear her over the wind. She shouted, “Hello!”

  They heard and knew it was Prilla without turning their heads. No one except Prilla said hello.

  “I’ll fly with you as long as I can.”

  With Prilla pulling, too, the carrier made better progress. Ree thought she saw the sea in the distance.

  “How high is the flood?” Ree shouted.

  “Four inches.”

  Up to a fairy’s shoulders!

  Tink’s smile vanished. “Has anyone—”

  “—drowned?”

  But Prilla was gone. Her good-bye lingered in the wind.

  T E N

  AS SOON AS Prilla arrived in Fairy Haven she blinked away again. There was Sara Quirtle, on the floor of a living room with another girl. The two were coloring on the same page of an enormous pad. Sara Quirtle was biting her lip in concentration and pressing her crayon into the paper so hard it broke.

  Prilla celebrated Sara Quirtle’s completion by turning an aerial cartwheel.

  The girls were drawing fairies. The other girl’s fairy was huge, covering most of her side of the page. Sara Quirtle’s was fist-sized and upside down, doing a handstand.

  Prilla swooped onto the pad. She landed on her hands, imitating her image.

  Sara Quirtle laughed. “My fairy!”

  “Clap to end the flood!” Prilla blinked away.

  Rani knew Tink had been pleased with her ever since she’d wished for new wings, and Tink’s approval made her feel doubly guilty. She blurted out, “I made two wishes.”

  Tink yelled, “What?”

  Rani shouted, “I broke…”

  The wind died.

  “…my promise.” The words were almost loud enough to be heard in Never Land. “I made two wishes.”

  Tink and Ree were stunned. They hadn’t considered breaking their promises to Mother Dove. Now the possibility bloomed in each of them.

  “You both hate me!” Rani wailed.

  “I don’t hate you,” Tink said. “I’m glad you wished for wings. Now we know the wand works, and you’re fixed.” More or less. She thought the new wings would look better on a lizard.

  “I don’t hate you, either,” Ree said. “You were right to listen to me.”

  Tink asked, “What was your other—”

  “—wish?” Rani’s glow turned pink. “To make Soop be my friend.”

  Tink thought it a wasted wish. She didn’t know what she wanted to wish for, although images of Peter Pan kept popping into her mind. Ree thought about wanding up new laughs for Fairy Haven.

  An hour passed. Two hours. They reached the open sea. Tink squinted at the horizon. Never Land could move about the ocean. It could be nearby, looking for them.

  But the horizon was flat.

  Good, she thought. I have more time to think.

  That’s how wand-mad she was. She’d forgotten the flood.

  She decided to touch the wand. She let go of the balloon-carrier cord.

  Surprised, Rani tried to pull for both of them. Ree turned to watch Tink.

  The carrier lurched when Tink landed, then steadied. She sprinkled fairy dust on the wand and stroked it. The glow in her hand grew brighter. The wand was a kind of pot, maybe a stew pot for cooking up wishes. “Are you dreaming?” she murmured. Her fingers tingled. Yes, it was dreaming.

  She picked it up. She hadn’t planned her wish. She hadn’t meant to wish anything yet. The wish simply tumbled out. “Make Peter Pan fall in love with a clamshell, an ordinary clamshell.” She waved the wand and put it down.

  “Tink!” Rani cried.

  Tink met Rani’s eye. “He deserves it.” She returned to the carrier cord. Her heart was racing, and she fought back tears. She would not cry again over Peter.

  Instead, she grinned. Peter in love with a clamshell.

  On Marooners’ Rock, Peter was regaling a dozen mermaids with a tale he’d learned from Wendy. He said, “The little mermaid wished to marry the handsome prince.”

  The mermaids hooted with laughter. A real mermaid would never fall in love with a Clumsy!

  “She longed—” He broke off, feeling an urge to walk on the beach and look for shells. He dived off the rock.

  The fairy-dust talents were in the mill, rubbing beeswax on the pumpkin canisters that held the year’s supply of fairy dust. The beeswax would keep the canisters dry for a while. However, as soon as water got through, the dust inside would be ruined.

  Terence thought his arm was going to fall off, but he continued rubbing. Then, suddenly, he began to tremble. Overwork, he thought.

  No, not overwork. Tink. She was in trouble! He felt it in his glow. He dropped his geranium-leaf rubbing cloth and flew out of the mill. Three fairies called to him, but he didn’t answer.

  He flew to the shore and set out toward the mainland. He didn’t think about food or fairy dust for the journey. He didn’t think about the immensity of the ocean and the tininess of three fairies and a balloon carrier. He thought only of Tink.


  Vidia broke through Rani’s ceiling and flew out the window of the room above, shouting, “Catch me!”

  The scouts didn’t try. Not a fairy alive could catch Vidia. A scout headed for the nest to tell Mother Dove.

  Vidia flew out to sea. Unlike Terence, she had plenty of fairy dust. One way or another, she always did.

  Night fell. The wind changed and blew at their backs. The questers made rapid progress.

  Ree began to think of herself as Queen Clarion the Great because of the magnificent wish she would make. The possibilities swirled in her head: more laughs, an improved Home Tree, a museum, domesticated tortoises. Her tiara blew off, and she didn’t even notice.

  Rani kept thinking she saw the island twinkling on the horizon.

  But it never was.

  E L E V E N

  AT MIDNIGHT, Temma, a shoemakingtalent fairy, drowned. Her last thought was that she’d never get her wand wish—to make a shoe with a toe that flickered back and forth from pointy to round.

  Beck went to tell Mother Dove, who already knew. They wept together.

  “Could the wand bring Temma back?” Beck asked.

  “No. Not even a wand can do that.”

  Terence flew through the night. He wished fairy glows were brighter. The questers might not be far away. A dozen yards off and he wouldn’t see them. He could fly until his dust gave out, and they might already be behind him.

  If I die, he thought, it will be for love.

  Dawn came. Rani opened the picnic basket. Nestled inside were lentil sandwiches, sesame-seed chips, and cherry tartlets. She took a sandwich. Another appeared. “It’s a magic basket!”

  The morning passed. Every few minutes, Tink closed her eyes and counted to a hundred, hoping that when she opened them she’d see Never Land.

  Ree evaluated wand project after wand project. She was debating raising a mountain under Fairy Haven when Rani said, “If I threw the wand overboard, I think Never Land would appear in two minutes.”

  “Don’t!” Ree said. “I forbid it.”

  “Rani wouldn’t,” Tink said. “Fairy Haven would—”

  “—be done for. Ree, you know I wouldn’t.”

  Ree nodded, feeling strange. For a moment she thought she might have wand madness. But she couldn’t. She’d spent a day with the wand and hadn’t used it yet.

  Tink, who was convinced of Ree’s madness, flew back to the wand and waved it, unaware that she was breaking her one-wish promise. “Cure Queen Ree of wand madness. Cure us all.”

  Another thing a wand can’t do is cure wand madness. It can only cause the disease.

  Terence estimated that he had an hour’s supply of fairy dust left, including the dust that was clinging to his frock coat and the days-old dust in the toes of his socks.

  He shook his hair and his sleeves, creating a mist of dust. He imagined Tink scowling, Tink dimpling, Tink tugging her bangs, Tink sticking out the tip of her tongue as she worked.

  What was that distant glimmer? Tink? The questers? He put on a burst of speed, the last burst he had left. Even so, he thought the glimmer too far off to reach.

  Ree considered hawks. Beck always maintained they were dignified and honorable. But how honorable was it to eat a fairy?

  What if she waved the wand and shrank them? She wouldn’t change anything else about them. They could go on being dignified and honorable.

  She flew onto the carrier. “Wand, I command you to shrink the hawks of Never Land to a quarter of an inch from beak to tail.” She picked up the wand and waved it. Perhaps she should change her title from queen to empress. Her true reign had just begun.

  Beck heard the hawks’ cry. Every animal talent heard it, a surprised squawk followed by a woebegone call, strong and deep at first, then weak and high as the birds shrank.

  Beck flew out of her animal-rescue boat. She flicked fairy dust into the air and blew on it. Then she headed for Mother Dove. A hawk would meet her there.

  The golden hawk arrived a few minutes after Beck. He was the oldest hawk, the magical one, whose feathers were brown on top and pure gold underneath.

  Beck’s glow winked out when she saw him. He was tiny! “Someone used the wand, right?” she said to Mother Dove. Her glow returned, deepening to a furious purple.

  “Yes, dear.” Mother Dove ached for the hawks. She was convinced Ree had made the wish.

  “Who?” Beck asked.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Beck knew Mother Dove would never tell. “How could they have done anything to the golden hawk?” He’d helped save Never Land after the hurricane.

  He landed on Beck’s head. Hawks aren’t complainers, and they’re not chatty. He didn’t say there was no joy without hunting. He didn’t say the fairies might as well have killed all the hawks. He only said, “How will we feed ourselves?”

  “We’ll help,” Beck promised. The animal talents could feed them, but food wasn’t enough. Fairies couldn’t give them back their pride.

  “Mother Dove? What can we do?”

  Mother Dove was silent. They couldn’t do anything.

  Terence made out Tink even before he saw the balloon carrier. He was flying slowly now, using muscle mostly and hardly any dust. His breath was coming in gasps, and she was much too far away to hear, but he called anyway, “Tink!”

  At least he’d seen her one more time.

  She saw his glow. “What’s that?” She pointed. “A firefly?”

  “It’s not a hawk,” Ree said. “We’re safe from them.”

  Rani spit and shaped the drop of water into a lens. “It’s Terence!” She observed him for a moment. “He’s dropping! He’ll go under.”

  That was when they should have used the wand. A single wave, and Terence would have been in the balloon carrier.

  But none of them thought of it. Instead, they swooped down, leaving the carrier with the wand hovering above.

  They’d almost reached him when the water closed over his head.

  Rani dived in and caught him just before his breath ran out. If not for her new wings, she wouldn’t have had the strength to pull him to the surface. Everyone was puffing by the time they’d hoisted him into the carrier.

  “You’re safe!” he gasped out to Tink, smiling at her.

  She tugged her bangs. “Of course, I’m safe. We saved—”

  “—you!” Rani started laughing.

  Tink dimpled. Ree smiled.

  Rani flew out of the carrier to shake herself pleasantly damp.

  Ree checked around, beginning to frown. Tink stood over Terence, making sure he was all right. He thought he could look at her forever. Then he realized—he’d been in the water, and he was alive! He saw Rani flapping her wings.

  “New wings, and they swim!” he said.

  Ree pushed the picnic basket aside.

  Rani nodded, looking both proud and distressed, thinking of Mother Dove. “And I can breathe underwater. I could have—”

  “Where’s the wand?” Ree said. Her voice rose. “Where’s the wand?”

  T W E L V E

  THEY THOUGHT the wand had fallen out of the carrier when they’d gone for Terence. Rani dived into the sea and spent half an hour looking for it without success.

  There was nothing to do but turn the carrier back toward the mainland. Rani wondered if Tutupia would make them all disappear when she found out they’d lost a wand. Terence checked their supply of fairy dust. He doubted they had enough to go to the castle and then reach home.

  Ree discovered her tiara was missing, too. She almost felt worse about it than about the wand. It was as though half her head had come off, or as if she no longer had a name.

  One more thing was gone: wand madness.

  At first they were too taken up with the lost wand to notice the change in themselves. But soon Tink remembered what she’d done to Peter. It was meaner than putting a dent in a pot on purpose, and a permanent dent at that.

  Rani was still glad Soop was her friend, and she was still
thrilled to fly again, but she felt with renewed force how disappointed in her Mother Dove was going to be. Ree wondered how she could have shrunk the hawks. What if they were all dead? What if everything inside them hadn’t fit into a quarter of an inch and they’d burst? And she’d wanted to be empress! She’d deserved to lose her tiara.

  “If Tutupia gives us another wand,” Ree said, “let’s ask her to lock it in a box that only a mermaid can—”

  “—open.” Rani wondered what a mermaid with wand madness would do.

  After that, everyone quizzed Terence about the flood, but he’d been at the mill the whole time and had little information for them.

  They pulled him in the balloon carrier until his wings dried. Then he sprinkled himself with fairy dust and joined them at the cord.

  After that they should have made good progress, with four fairies pulling, but the wind was against them again.

  Mother Dove’s nest was only nine inches above the water. Beck and Prilla and twelve more fairies came to move it to a higher branch. While they were airborne, Mother Dove cooed, “We’re going up, my love. Up!” Her voice caught. “You’re flying, dear.”

  This was the closest her egg would ever come to flight.

  Naturally, Vidia had the wand. She’d arrived while the questers were saving Terence. She’d viewed the unguarded carrier as a stroke of luck and hadn’t cared why.

  Waving the wand, she’d said, “Wand, sweetheart, make me able to fly as fast as I want, as far as I want, as long as I want.”

  Of course, she should have put the wand back, but she held on to it in case she needed to adjust her wish.

  She felt a surge of strength in her shoulder blades. She began to fly and was easily able to achieve her ordinary top speed, then faster, smoothly faster.

  Far above, a petrel crossed a cloud.

  Catch it!

  The bird squawked as she flashed by. She laughed at its surprise.

  Faster!

  The air stung her face and roared in her ears. This was what she’d always dreamed of.